I love Val Webb’s image and she and I both love COMPOST! She says: There’s an irresistible alchemy involved when you can start with garbage and end up with a wildly nutrient-rich substance that has been likened to Ghirardelli chocolate for earthworms.

Composting is EASY! Start Now! Get your soil fat! The sooner you plant, and plant in tasty soil, the sooner you get a great harvest!

There’s compost and vermicompost, hot and cold compost, compost in place, trenching, to name a few. You have options!

Compost is decayed organic matter – poops – that’s manures, dry leaves and straw/alfalfa, wet grasses and kitchen wastes. Compost has a variable amount of Nitrogen in it depending on what has been composted and how the compost was made. Some studies show unturned compost has more Nitrogen than turned compost. Homemade compost can be up to 4 N, as is fish emulsion and chicken manure. Steer is 2, horse 1.7. If you need a quick boost for a yellowing N starved plant, go for bat guano, or easily assimilable blood meal, both at 10 N! Be careful with that bat guano, it’s hot and can burn your plants. And both are pricey. Get just the amount you need at Island Seed and Feed’s bulk bins.

Vermicompost is worm poop. Politely, worm castings. Simple as that. Red wriggler worms are easy to raise, will eat lots of things but do best with tender stuff, your green kitchen waste. They love cantaloupe and melon rinds, nesting in avocado shells, egg shells keep their pH neutral. Wrigglers are surface feeders not earthworms. If you put wrigglers in the soil, they die. Worm castings (vermicompost) have negligible N, about .05, are NOT A FERTILIZER, but do a lot of other good things for your plants. Highly recommended.

Hot compost has to be made carefully, have just the right mix, be tended like a baby, and defies many attempts to get it hot! If you don’t get the combo of your materials right, you are cold composting. The advantage of hot composting is it is fast, kills bad creatures and weed seeds. Also kills the good guys. But. Only in the parts of the pile that actually get that hot. The whole pile never gets that hot, like the outside of the pile. Even if you turn it so the outside goes inside, it’s hard to guarantee it will all get that hot, so be advised. It’s pretty cute to see all those little plants that spring up in the pile….

Cold compost is just throwing your done plants or trim, preferably not diseased or pest infested, into a pile or your compost enclosure, layering with some wet or dry material as needed. It might get hot, it likely won’t. It will decompose if you keep it moist. If not you have dead dry stuff, no nutrients. Some studies have shown that cold compost is more nutritious than hot compost. Makes sense since you aren’t burning off Nitrogen and other goodies including beneficial insects and microorganisms. If your stuff doesn’t turn black and fluffy and smell good when it is decomposed to unrecognizable pieces, you don’t have compost. Perhaps you could use it as mulch?

Composting in place, sheet composting, Lasagna Gardening, is a time saver, no moving later. Chop and drop on the spot, add dry/wet materials as needed, amendments, red wrigglers, let nature do the work. Especially add some chicken manure before you add your layers, because decomposition uses Nitrogen! If you are starting on top of turf, using cardboard as your bottom layer, be sure to SATURATE the cardboard. Don’t rush this part. Really saturate it. You want it to last long enough for the grass underneath it to die, to keep the grass from growing up through your pile; you also want your cardboard to decompose so your plants’ roots can grow through it when your pile sinks as the pile decomposes.

Trenching kitchen trim is traditional – cover it and forget it! Crushed eggshells, torn tea bags, coffee grounds. Six inches deep is all you need to do. Cover with the soil, water as usual, your stuff will disappear in about a week! Don’t put in meats or oils that attract digging predators, or grains or cereals that will attract mice. Leave out citruses and spicy foods.

Start Now! 10 Easy Steps to Make RICH COMPOST!

Make the most out of your finished plants or trim; use them for compost, organic fertilizer! A compost enclosure is a fine garden investment! Keep it humming! Dig your compost in around your plants, plant IN your new compost! Surface compost Nitrogen just off gases, so put a layer of soil over your compost to keep the Nitrogen right where you need it, in the soil feeding your plants.

1. Get or make your enclosure, a good working size for you, then layer, layer, layer! Half inch layers are ideal, but do what you can. A pile 3′ by 3′ is your best minimum if you want a hot pile. Enclosures can be free pallets on Craigs List tied together, plastic beehive types to keep the rats and mice out, the circular hard black rubber kind, to expensive rolling types, garbage cans with bottoms removed, holes made in their sides! Do what works for you!
2. Dry stuff first so it will get wet from the stuff you put on top. That’s ‘brown’ – dry ingredients such as dead leaves, wetted newspaper or cardboard, alfalfa/straw. The formula is 2 dry, brown to 1 wet, ‘green.’
3. Layer up with your kitchen waste you saved, undiseased green waste from your garden or greens recycle bin. Avoid hard woody stems and seeding weed plants. Cut up large items, halve whole items like apples, potatoes. Tear teabags, crush eggshells.
4. Lay in a few yarrow leaves to speed decomposition. Grow yarrow by your composter for handy use.
5. Inoculate with a sprinkle of soil, living micro organisms, that multiply, munch and speed composting.
6. Sprinkle your layers with aged manure (keep a bucketful next to your composter) to enrich it.
7. Keep layering up to 3’ high or until you run out of materials.
8. Keep your composting materials moist, to keep them live and decomposing. Don’t let them dry out – dry is dead, nothing happens, nutrients are lost, time and space wasted.
9. Cover with a large piece of *folded heavy mil black plastic to keep your compost moist, and dark so any worms that take up residence work up through the whole pile, to the top .
10. Keep adding to it, stir or turn often to oxygenate, weekly if you can. Composting organisms need lots of air to operate. Keep it moist but not drippy and drowning. Some studies show compost is more Nitrogen rich if you DON’T turn it! Hmm…read on.

If you are not able to do that much heavy turning or don’t want to take the time, simply, push a long stick into your compost, several times, in different places, to let oxygen in. Or, if you are inclined, at intervals in your pile, as you build it, you can insert, horizontally or vertically, 2″ PVC pipes, that have had holes drilled in them every 6″ for aeration. If you are going to insert horizontally, make your holes on one side only; put the holes side down to keep them from clogging. Make sure both ends stick out so there is air flow through the pipes. If you insert vertically, drill holes all around the pipe. If you use a larger diameter, line it with wire mesh to keep it from filling with debris. Once made, you can use your PVC over and over. Other alternatives are to make wire mesh cylinders or tie a bundle of twigs together.

Your compost is finished when you no longer recognize the individual materials that went into it. If you are have a small compost batch, when ready, lay out your *folded plastic cover, pitchfork the still decomposing stuff on top of your pile onto your plastic. Use that good stuff at the bottom where you want it. Or plant in the nutrient rich spot where your composter was! Put your composter in a new spot, fork the stuff still decomposing back in, add new materials, recover, do it again! The process slows down in winter, speeds up in summer, generally you have some compost in 6 to 8 weeks.

If you have time, throw a cup or so of compost in a bucket, fill with water, let sit overnight, voila, compost tea! Soak your seeds in it before planting! Pour it round your plants or use your watering can to spray it on their leaves, both tops and bottoms – foliar feeding. Your veggies will thrive! If you have a lawn, make aeration holes with your spade fork and pour the tea down them. You soil will start to live again!

The average berry has 200 seeds, the only fruit whose seeds are on its exterior surface! The seeds are really the fruit!

Usually grown from runner daughters, they will grow from seed. Just throw down caps you bit the berry from. Sooner or later, you will have a plant you didn’t ‘plant.’ Strawberry seed saving is simple.

Eight out of 10 strawberries grown in the U.S. are grown in California!

Strawberries came in second to blueberries in the USDA’s analysis of antioxidant capacity of 40 fruits and vegetables. They are also rich in dietary fiber and manganese, and contain more vitamin C than any other berry.

Image courtesy of StrawberryPlants.org

When do I plant strawberries? Not now, NOVEMBER 1 to 10! Yes, it’s that specific for winter chill at the perfect time! They start producing runners now, but cut them off until early July! Then let them grow, and cut off the new baby plants mid October for November planting. Or, just let them grow to fill spots where, for one reason or another, a plant has gone missing, needs replacing, and/or another could fit in. When those needs are taken care of, cut off the rest of the runners. These runner plant babies will grow so fast you will be getting berries from them late summer and fall if you have everbearers/day neutral types!!

My plant isn’t producing….
Variety – If it is an everbearer, day neutral, variety it will produce almost all year. June/spring bearers put out a prolific batch in June, then it’s over. No amount of care or feeding is going to make that plant have berries after June. Sorry. Best to get the varieties your local nursery carries. Or talk with them about special ordering well in advance, so they can get the ones you want.Temps – cold weather slows down pollinators.Shaded – believe me, strawberries like all-day sun! If you are going to tuck them in among other plants, be sure to put them on the sunny side!Hungry – think about it! A strawberry plant is often pumping out several berries at a time! They are using up soil nutrition, so feed them! Try a light solution of fish emulsion/kelp every other week over some sprinkled seabird guano or a well aged manure. Give your strawberries a little fertilizer in the 0-10-10 proportions; that’s lots of phosphorus and potassium for strong roots and uptake of nutrients, blooms and fruits!Water – don’t let them dry out, they will stop producing. This month they tend to grow more leaves, send out runners. Clip off the runners for now, so they don’t take your plant’s energy away from producing berries, unless you want more plants right away.Mulching is good. They love pine needle mulch, if you have some about, because they prefer slightly acidic soil. Drape your berries over pine cones to keep them off the ground, out of the slug zone.Age – First year plants and 3rd year plants don’t produce as well.
My berries are really tiny! Strawberry varieties vary from mammoth chocolatiers, to midget but mighty tasty alpines. If it isn’t a variety issue, it may be diseased. See below please.

Misshapen berries or split in two sections with a hole in the center Irregular watering Your berry grows fast when it has water, then is restricted when it doesn’t….Western Tarnished Plant Bugs, feed on the flowers and developing surface seeds that stimulate growth causing misshapen berries, hard clusters of yellow seeds on the tip of the fruit. Clean up debris. Once you see this, you are too late to prevent it any further. Bummer. UC Davis IPM Integrated Pest Management on Lygus Hesperus. Image of typical cat-faced berries.Pollination Strawberry flowers are usually open and attractive to bees only a day or less. Temperatures below 60F, low night temperatures, & high humidity result in inadequate pollination, low yields of small or misshapen fruit. Strawberries require multiple pollination for perfect fruit formation. Generally, as the number of pollinator visits increases, there will be an increase in fruit set, number of seed per fruit, fruit shape, and fruit weight. ABOUT BEES: per NCSU ‘Bees rarely fly when the temperature is below 55°F. Flights seldom intensify until the temperature reaches 70°F. Wind speed beyond 15 miles per hour seriously slows bee activity. Cool, cloudy weather and threatening storms greatly reduce bee flights. In poor weather, bees foraging at more distant locations will remain in the hive, and only those that have been foraging nearby will be active. Pumpkin, squash, and watermelon flowers normally open around daybreak and close by noon; whereas, cucumbers, strawberries, and muskmelons generally remain open the entire day.’ So if the weather isn’t right THE DAY OR MORNING your flower opens…..

Whole plant has yellow leaves. The most common cause is nutrient deficiencies due to overwatering. Overwatering causes poor root growth making it difficult to move enough water to the leaves during hot weather. Lay back on watering; give your babies some Nitrogen –fish emulsion/kelp.

Rebecca & David Barker, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, Plot 41, staked the chicken wire in place, push it up to harvest, down to just the right height when done!

Holes in them, Chewed Silvery slime trails are the giveaway! Use the pine cones to drape your berries over to keep them off the ground. Put down some Sluggo or the like, to kill off night-time nibblers, slugs, snails. Harvest regularly before the berry gets soft and smelly, just before the buglets are attracted! Those little black pointy worms? I’m trying to find out what they are. If you know, let me know, ok?!Uprooted Sad to say, that sounds like ‘possums, raccoon, or skunk. They are looking for your earth worms or grubs. Just like bunnies, these critters won’t jump a low barrier. They just go around it. So install a foot tall perimeter of wire pieces, black plastic plant flats, old trellis parts, whatever you have around, or go get something that looks good to you so you will be happy. Relocating the critters is a good choice because, they do have children, that have children, that…

Angular Leaf Spot – exactly that. Spotted leaves. A cosmetic problem until it isn’t. Your plant will produce, but it won’t thrive. Spread by water, harvest before you water, water under the leaves, remove badly spotted leaves, don’t use them as mulch, wash your hands before going on to another plant.Strawberry Blight – the fungus is often confused with angular leaf spot, overwinters in old leaves, remove them. Remove old leaves from runner plants before setting. All day sun, well-drained soil, in an area with circulation, equals less fungus. For good air circulation, plant far enough apart, remove weeds, remove, replant and/or give away runner baby sets. Plant resistant varieties for your area of your state. Discussion of SoCal varieties. When you buy new plants be sure they are certified from a disease-free nursery. If you use a fungicide, spray the underside of leaves as well as the tops.

Successful SoCal varieties!

Chandler is the most widely commercially grown strawberry in California. High yield, early producer, large southern berry. It’s a June bearer, so if you want year round supply, this is not your berry.Seascape is an ever-bearing, big day neutral, all year strawberry, harvests are more abundant in late spring. High yield, resistant to most diseases except leaf spot. Reliable producer in fall, performs well in hot, dry climates. Berry is bright red inside and out!Oso Grande Another June bearer, high yield big berry, good in warm climates.